For art is emotion without desire.

I just saw Avatar.

I admit, coming out of it I wanted to paint my body in day-glo and jump on the back of a bird.

That said, what an awful movie. Sorry.

Let it be known that corny blockbusters have a special place in my heart. I grew up on James Cameron films: Aliens, The Terminator, and Titanic were all pivotal cinematic experiences as a kid. But I also grew up listening to Destiny's Child. Point is, times change.

Watching Avatar was like re-watching Disney's Pocohantas, complete with all the bullshit, white, hetero-normative hegemony Disney is famous for. Not just Pocahontas, but the film it's commonly been juxtaposed with, Dances with Wolves, or gods, really ANY Hollywood film about colonization through the perspective of a white male. Which is very nearly every epic Hollywood film.

Annalee Newitz at i09 put it the best:

"Whites need to stop remaking the white guilt story, which is a sneaky way of turning every story about people of color into a story about being white. Speaking as a white person, I don’t need to hear more about my own racial experience. I’d like to watch some movies about people of color (ahem, aliens), from the perspective of that group, without injecting a random white (erm, human) character to explain everything to me. Science fiction is exciting because it promises to show the world and the universe from perspectives radically unlike what we’ve seen before. But until white people stop making movies like Avatar, I fear that I’m doomed to see the same old story again and again." (from Pajiba)

Simply put, the plot was boring. Why is the film industry still trying to alleviate my white guilt through overworked stereotypes and corny plot lines?



If you can get past all of that, the scenery is absolutely beautiful, and Cameron's imagined culture of the Na'vi is magnificent. But the film was an expose of these ideas, not an exploration of them, which would have been far more interesting and fulfilling to watch. The film raised no questions, technologically or otherwise. And so it fell flat.

Avatar is nothing new. If you still have to know what all the fuss is about, buy a ticket and some hip 3-D glasses, and wonder why blockbuster film content hasn't matured in over a decade.

It's been a while. I know. And really the only reason I'm posting anything now (strictly for Jamie, since she and, well, me are this blog's only followers) is due to the crackheaded state-of-been-writing-about-convoluted-film-theory-for-two-day-straight-being I am in.

That said let's move right along.




The Darjeeling Limited is not Wes Anderson's best work, and it's not perfect, but it's fucking good (Jason Schwartzman is barefoot on a moped. 'Nuff said.). And the music is fucking gold. If a movie could be judged by soundtrack alone, Darjeeling would take that train right on down to the cult-classic station.

At least for me, and the 5 other people who couldn't stop listening to it.

First of all, it's perfect traveling music. When I was in Nepal, flying in a Cesna-like 20-person, Indiana-Jones-wouldn't-know-how-to-fly-but-would-crash-land-immediately-before-the explosion-type airplane through the tallest mountain range in the world to a landing strip a single football field in length with a sheer cliff on one end and a mountain wall at the other, I had my headphones in and listened to The Kinks sing "This Time Tomorrow," tapping their tambourines, as I waved out the window to the high-altitude trees swaying on the mountain peak next door.

The Kinks songs on the album are heartfelt and express a longing for comradery in a lonely world where we all make mistakes and want a friend to make them with. Just the line "Strangers on this road we are on - But we are not two, we are one" simply says, "We're in this together, whatever it might be."

Some of the best of the album (and as I've said, it's ALL GOOD) is the Indian classical music by Ustad Vilayat Khan. I don't know what all the instruments are, I think there's probably some sitar involved, but whatever it is, it's magnificent. The songs are cheerful and traveling (a theme, obviously) and never dull. Here's another example of his work:
http://popup.lala.com/popup/937030206147800510

(Ha! Sitar)

Khan was born in Ghauripur in British India back in 1929. He passed away in March 2004 of lung cancer. The style of music is called "Raga" which in Sanskrit means "mood" or "color." The music takes on a particular feeling and expresses it.

Charlotte Gainsbourg

Last week I was told I look like Charlotte Gainsbourg, "the chick from Science of Sleep." Flattered, (and since there's already another 'intrepid flower' running around Nashville plastering my name all over her delightfully subtle and heartfelt pop-folk music) I figure I might as well also shamelessly promote Ms. Gainsbourg here to boost my visage that much further in the world.

"And these songs that I sing, do they mean anything to the people like you?"

Charlotte Gainsbourg- Songs That We Sing

This song is haunting me. So good. Her upcoming album "IRM" is being produced by Beck and Radiohead.

In movie news, the trailer for Gainsbourg's next film Antichrist by Danish director Lars Von Trier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark) coming out next month, fucking gave me the shivers.

With Willem Dafoe, the two play "Him" and "Her" who try to overcome Her fears after their son dies (?) by going into the woods where there are angry animals and too many hands coming out of trees and drops of chocolate-evil-rain-balls fall on Willem's head... See for yourself:

Playing at the Nick on Nov. 13. Come see it. Eat some popcorn. Drink some Chai.